In this video, an activist talks about the idea that, in our form of government, we owe each other an inter-connected responsibility as a result of having formed a society, that, according to Wikipedia, was created by people through a "process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept corresponding duties to protect themselves and one another from violence and other kinds of harm."
As a result of Rudin Management Company paying pennies on the dollar for the real estate of St. Vincent's Hospital, what, in effect, Bill Rudin and the Rudin family have done is to violate the terms of our social contract. The Rudin family are saying that they don't care that the larger community is being harmed as a result of their billion-dollar luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's real estate properties. As a result of the luxury condo conversion, the entire Lower West Side of Manhattan is being left with no full-service hospital and no Level 1 Trauma Center.
What should citizens then, therefore, do, now that the top 1% is now in violation of our social compact ?
On Christmas Eve, activists spent the night on the frigid sidewalk, in protest, and in full legal compliance with a court ruling that was issued pre-Zuccotti occupation. That court ruling, People v. Bounville, still allows protesters to occupy a city sidewalk for over-night sleep protests. Whereas powerholders, such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn continue to stick to their rationalisations for the eviction of Zuccotti Park and the requirement for protest permits, correspondingly, these politicians join the Rudin family in violation of our social compact. Once more and more activists figure out that the 1% no longer abide by our social compact, then activists will educate citizens. Then, citizens will join activists in their only remaining option : to #Occupy.
Christmas Eve Protest 2011 at St. Vincent's -- Occupy Your Neighborhood
On Christmas Eve, Timothy Lunceford participated in the protest outside St. Vincent's Hospital. He compared the emerging city that is stacked in favour of the 1% to the Pottersville from the classic Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."
Contact : Louis Flores, 1-646-400-1168, lflores22@gmail.com
STOP THE “POTTERSVILLE” OF NEW YORK CITY : CHRISTMAS EVE CAROLING AND SLEEP-OUT AT ST. VINCENT’S HOSPITAL
New York, NY (Dec. 21, 2011) – On Christmas Eve, an ad hoc group of community activists will be standing outside the former Emergency Room of St. Vincent’s Hospital, singing Christmas Carols and distributing Band-Aids.
START: Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
END : Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, 7:00 a.m.
PLACE : St. Vincent’s Hospital, Seventh Avenue South and West 11th Street
Activists will sing Christmas Carols to celebrate the charitable role of St. Vincent’s in New York City history — for caring for lives during the cholera epidemic of 1849, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the AIDS crisis during the 1980’s, the September 11 attacks, and the Hudson River landing of a jet airplane in 2009.
Activists will also hand out Band-Aid bandages as a symbol of the “Band-Aid approach” to public health as a result of the inferior North Shore-LIJ/Lenox Hill urgent care center, which is being pushed onto the community by politicians, lobbyists, and Bill Rudin.
SOME ACTIVISTS WILL SPEND THE NIGHT OUTSIDE IN SLEEPING BAGS ON THE FRIGID SIDEWALK, TO DEMONSTRATE HOW PATIENTS ARE BEING “LEFT OUT IN THE COLD” IN THE NEW “POTTERSVILLE” TREND IN HEALTHCARE IN NEW YORK STATE.
In the short term, activists want to force civic leaders, such as billionaire Bill Rudin of the Rudin Management Company, to take the lead in building a Level 1 Trauma Center and full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent’s.
In the long term, activists demand a single-payer healthcare system in New York State to put an end to the constant healthcare cuts, layoffs, hospital closings, and corruption that is endemic in the state’s broken healthcare system. Just this year alone, witness the bribery cases against MediSys chief executive David P. Rosen and New York State Senator Carl Kruger, each of whom were involved in hospital-related corruption.
FOCUS ON HEALTH AND YOUR COMMUNITY HOSPITAL : Surviving the North Shore-LIJ downsizing of healthcare in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.
Community activists are launching a pamphlet to be called "Focus on Health," which will include a "survival guide" to the North Shore-LIJ downsizing of healthcare in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.
Community opinion has uniformly opposed the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the subsequent luxury condo conversion up-zoning that would benefit Rudin Management Company.
Meanwhile, as more and more community members and activists become educated on the dire healthcare implications of hospital closings across New York City, new activists are coming together to demand accountability for irresponsible public health decisions.
Creative and imaginary enactment of the first day of the new first aid clinic that Bill Rudin is opening in the West Village to replace the Level 1 Trauma Center and full-service hospital that used to be at St. Vincent's.
Slush Fund Scandal Festers And Haunts Christine Quinn
Tom Allon, a candidate for mayor and challenger to City Council Christine Quinn, published a scathing editorial about Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal in the opinion pages of The New York Post. Read just some of what Mr. Allon wrote :
City Councilman Larry Seabrook can afford a sigh of relief after the mistrial blocked a corruption conviction. But taxpayers can take no solace, for the abusive waste of “member items” underlying the case was irrefutable.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn should be held accountable; it's high time Mayor Bloomberg and the voters held her feet to the fire for the mismanagement of taxpayer dollars during the last decade.
Mr. Allon added, "You see, the Seabrook scandal wasn’t an isolated action but part of a persistent pattern. The responsibility for deterring corruption in the City Council lies with Quinn, who has failed to hold her members accountable."
Mr. Allon's courageous op-ed was so troublesome for Speaker Quinn that news about the NYPost editorial immediate was reported about (and validated) in a slush fund update post on the City Room blog of The New York Times.
Separately, the True News From Change NYC blog also featured these news developments about Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal. (You need to scroll down, to find the news items.)
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn parties with Alfred E. Smith IV, the former chairman of St. Vincent's Hospital, which was run into the ground by gross mismanagement by its former board of directors.
Another carriage horse collapsed today while working during the heavy holiday shopping and tourist season in busy Midtown Manhattan. The horse fell onto the pavement near the intersection of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, according to a Facebook alert posted by animal rights activist Elizabeth Forel. This video was taken by an activist with the animal rights group called Win Animal Rights (WAR), and it is going viral. For years, animal rights activists have been trying to shut down the cruel carriage horse industry over past traffic accidents and unsafe work conditions that the horses must endure, including having to work during hurricane warnings. But the inhumane policies of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn, who accept campaign donations bundled by the horse carriage lobbyists, continue to resist efforts to close the unsafe use of horses to pull carriages in the middle of the heavy traffic of Midtown Manhattan.
Can somebody set up an iPhone text alert each time that Christine Quinn doles out slush funds, changes term limits, approves restrictive protest permit requirements, or sells out LGBT civil rights in exchange for Bloombo Dicto's approval ? Make sure you have unlimited texting on your service plan. LOL !!!
When You're Good To Mama : Flashback : Adam Lisberg exposes the fact that Christine Quinn and others received luxury gifts from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
According to the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy :
"Mike Bloomberg gives free rides on Air Bloomberg, his private jet, to NYC staff including Christine Quinn. And the Conflict of Interest Board refuses to comment ! The Conflict of Interest Board -- the biggest joke in town, because this board does exist -- almost never thinks anything is a conflict of interest."
The practice of stopping hundreds of thousands of black and Latino young men is a crime, and the city should pay for the innocent men it has detained so far.
Some in the city, including Kirsten John Foy, top aide to City Public Adovocate Bill de Blasio, say millions of New Yorkers are being stopped every year.
The vast majority are known to be innocent of any crime.
This is wrong and it is discriminatory.
"Quinn says she’d continue the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk tactic . . ." was the information that Brooklyn Ron quoted, from a New York magazine article written by Chris Smith.
Health Petition : Mayor Michael Bloomberg : Stop the Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan
Sign Our Petition ! The Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan will set a dangerous public health precedent. City politicians would be saying that a top 1% real estate developer can make hundreds of millions of dollars in private profit by converting the charitable public real estate buildings of the former St. Vincent's Hospital, whilst the 99% have no replacement Level One Trauma Center or Full-Service Hospital. If Rudin's Condo Plan is approved, Mayor Bloomberg would be saying that it is O.K. for an entire section of New York City to have no full-service hospital. How can this be a responsible public health care policy ? Mayor Bloomberg needs to stop the Rudin Condo Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital until a full-service hospital is created.
No comment from openly lesbian New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to the homophobic comments and attitude by the private security guards employed Brookfield Properties. Speaker Quinn has a record of betraying the LGBT community, but nobody knows if her silence after an unidentified security guard used the pejorative epithet of ''faggot'' against Joey Boots will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Note that at 0:24 appears Deputy Inspector Edward Winski, the chief of the First Precinct of Manhattan. An anonymous source said that many of the private security guards that work for Brookfield Properties are off-duty or retired officers from the NYPD. And because Brookfield Properties hires off-duty and retired police officers, it gives Brookfield the inside line of being able to pick up a cellphone and reach a direct line to NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
ST. VINCENT’S ACTIVISTS JOIN #OCCUPYWALLSTREET
IN DAY OF MASS, NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION
Contact : Louis Flores, 1-646-400-1168, lflores22@gmail.com
New York, NY (Nov. 15, 2011) – Activists from Hands Off St. Vincent’s are proud to join #OccupyWallStreet, the labor movement, and the global movement for economic and social equality during the November 17th Day of Action in New York City.
Members of the Healthcare for the 99% Working Group from #OccupyWallStreet will join this action. Activists are undertaking their action on :
DATE : Thursday, November 17, 2011
TIME : 1:00 – 1:30 p.m.
PLACE : St. Vincent’s Hospital, Seventh Avenue South and West 11th Street
Activists will stage a SPEAK-OUT and a DIE-IN.
Activists want to force billionaire Bill Rudin from the Rudin Management Company to take the lead in building a Trauma Level 1, full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent’s.
Did you know that the residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan below 57th Street have no hospital ?
Did you know that Bill Rudin wants to offer us a two-bed “hospital” in a phony health care facility ?
Christine Quinn : She has become more and more "calculating."
In a long journalism piece into how City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has sold out, Capital New York has questioned why Speaker Quinn has abandoned those New Yorkers amongst us with the least.
For example, on the social problem of poverty, Speaker Quinn has always sided with the billionaire 1%-er Mayor Michael Bloomberg than with poor New Yorkers. Speaker Quinn has opposed more housing assistance to people with H.I.V., she has opposed paid sick leave, and she is about to kill a living wage bill. Not only that, but she has also done nothing to expand the number of shelters for LGBT homeless youth to the point that activists are beginning to blame the clergy for the problems of homeless LGBT youth shelters rather than the City Council Speaker, who likes to dole out her City Council slush funds to politically-expedient charities to seemingly everybody, except for the broke, disenfranchised, and powerless -- the people, who have no money to donate to her political campaigns.
How did we get to a place where Speaker Quinn's supporters are attacking the Metropolitan Community Church for having no money to improve its homeless LGBT youth shelter, rather than criticise the City Council Speaker, who is in charge of the city budget (and her shady City Council slush funds) to supposedly "fix" social problems ? And did Howard Rubenstein's invisible hand have a part in this ?
Council Speaker Christine Quinn likes to chew gum, but an etiquette expert told CBSNewYork that the speaker’s public mastication is unacceptable “in polite, civil society,” reported WCBS News.
Watch what people in the community are calling the "Kiss of Death of St. Vincent's Hospital" at 1:49
In a speech sponsored by the Association for a Better New York, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn spoke about the Great Recession and the dire straits in which that working families find themselves. Who knew that she was talking about the conditions created by William Rudin ?
You see, William Rudin is the figure head owner of the company called Rudin Management Company. He, his company, and his entire family have bought the real estate of St. Vincent's Hospital from bankruptcy court for only $260 million. After he supersizes the campus and converts it into luxury condominiums, he is going to sell exclusive luxury condos and townhouses for a combined market value of over $1 billion.
It is the #corporategreed of the Rudin family and the Association for a Better New York that is shredding the social safety net right here in New York City by denying emergency and trauma care to the entire Lower West Side. That is why William Rudin and his company have become the targets of protests by #OccupyWallStreet. Has anybody told that to Speaker Quinn ? Will it be the end of her political career for her to be seen kissing the man, who is the target of #OccupyWallStreet ?
Did Christine Quinn Give Up On Saving St. Vincent's In Exchange for Campaign Donations From The Rudin Family ?
In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. During this time, the Rudin family has been trying to salvage a multi-million dollar real estate purchase of the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn has done nothing to restore a hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ?
I wonder what William Rudin, Jo Hamilton, Brad Hoylman, and Christine Quinn have to say about this :
So, why are patients at New York’s hospitals suffering when it comes to ER wait times lasting well above the national average of four hours? For one, the city has lost seven hospitals since 2007, with two hospitals closing just last year: Harlem's North General Hospital and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greeenwich Village. Those closures displaced 96-thousand patients.
“Every time you have a closure it affects some place else. It’s the classical case of squeezing balloon here, and it pops up somewhere else,” explained Kenneth Raske, CEO of The Greater New York Hospital Association. He cited the weak economy as the single biggest reason for the long wait times; more people become uninsured, and more hospitals struggle financially.
How can this be responsible public healthcare policy ? Don't let the congested Lower West Side of Manhattan to be turned into a testing ground for North Shore-LIJ's free-standing first aid clinic experiment. We will pay for this risky experiment with our own lives.
Where would you want to be in case of an emergency ?
As of about 7:15 a.m., this blog came back up, but my No Third Term blog remains down. Please contact press@google.com and demand that political blogs stop from getting flagged for spam -- this leads to political censorship.
Google Censors Political Activist-Blogger Louis Flores
01 November 2011 (New York) -- This morning, LGBT civil rights activist and political blogger Louis Flores woke up to an e-mail from Google’s Blogger service, informing him that one of his principal political blogs (No Third Term : http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/) was censored by Google. Ostensibly, the No Third Term blog was marked as “spam,” but the blog entirely contains content that has been critical of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Screenshot of No Third Term Blog url : “Blog has been removed” notification : http://s203.photobucket.com/albums/aa235/maslow25/?action=view¤t=2011-11-01GoogleCensorsNoThirdTermBlog-Screenshot2011-11-01at51909AM.png
Screenshot of Louis Flores’ Blogger account : “Account has been disabled” notification : http://s203.photobucket.com/albums/aa235/maslow25/?action=view¤t=2011-11-01GoogleDisablesLouisFloresEntireGoogleAccount-Screenshot2011-11-01at53405AM.png
But not only was the No Third Term blog deleted by Google’s Blogger service, but Mr. Flores’ entire Blogger account was “disabled.” Consequently, all of Mr. Flores’ blogs have also been removed. Examples of other blogs that were removed are : http://christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/, http://nyc-mayor-2013.blogspot.com/, http://bigotbell.blogspot.com/, and http://ny-popculture-politics.blogspot.com/.
Before sending this press release, Mr. Flores filled out a web form, asking Google to restore his blog.
“I ask all political bloggers to contact Google on my behalf, to demand that they restore my blogs and my account,” said Louis Flores, 38, from Jackson Heights, Queens.
People are encouraged to contact : press@google.com
This morning’s censorship followed just hours after Mr. Flores published a controversial blog post on the Christine Quinn Sold Out blog, which traced back to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn the problems that the #OccupyWallStreet social movement have been having with protest permits. Note that the Christine Quinn Sold Out blog and the controversial post ( http://christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupywallstreet-protest-permits.html) have also been temporarily removed/deäctivated by Google’s Blogger service.
“If Google believes in doing no harm, it should not allow the censorship of political blogs, whose only aim is to demand accountability from elected politicians,” said Mr. Flores. “But Google has a pattern of doing this. Just weeks before the 2009 mayoral election, Google’s YouTube service censored artist and political blogger Suzannah B. Troy’s entire YouTube account, and in March 2011, Google’s Blogger service censored political consultant and activist Gary Tilzer’s blog, too. This harassment of political activists and bloggers must come to an end.”
# # #
Tracking : 02
------ Forwarded Message
From: Blogger
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2011 08:54:57 +0000
To: Louis Flores
Subject: http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/ has been deleted
Hello, Your blog at http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: SPAM. In accordance to these terms, we've removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible. For more information, please review the following resources: Blogger Terms of Service: http://blogger.com/terms.g Blogger Content Policy: http://blogger.com/content.g -The Blogger Team
The requirement for "protest permits" in New York City, which bedevils the #OccupyWallStreet movement, can be traced back to Christine Quinn, naturally.
On September 24, 2011, what was then the eighth day of the #OccupyWallStreet protest, about 1,000 protesters went on an unpermitted march from Zuccotti Park to Union Square Park in Manhattan. Along the way, 80 people were arrested for various reasons, according to Gothamist :
The majority of the arrests, which were for disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration, blocking vehicular traffic, and one assault on a police officer, occurred around Union Square yesterday afternoon after nearly a thousand demonstrators marched down Broadway. Videos show NYPD officers corralling women with nets, indiscriminately discharging pepper spray, and tackling protestors.
How New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn figures into the arrests of what now numbers well over 1,000 #OccupyWallStreet protesters is a matter of historical record : just take a look at who approved the protest permit requirement in the first place. Not surprisingly, the development of protest permits in New York City can be ascertained by following the course of how Speaker Quinn sold out her liberal roots in pursuit of mayoral electability.
In 2006, multiple courts ruled the City’s assembly rules unconstitutional, and City Council was charged with fixing them. Instead of conducting public hearings and placing the matter into the hands of City Council, Speaker Quinn abdicated her responsibilities and allowed the NYPD to write these rules behind closed doors.
In February 2007, she rubberstamped the new rules into effect. Suddenly, it became illegal for 50 or more people to gather and process through New York City—unless they request and are given prior permission from the police.
Of course, the NYPD has a long history of attacking political groups, and one of their favorite tools is to deny permit requests of groups—like the organizers of the 2007 Trans Day of Action—who they don’t like.
Why do police decide who can assemble and who cannot? And since when do the police write rules? And why is all of this okay with Quinn?
Quinn so desperately wants to be mayor that she has sold the queer community and her constituents down the historical river for her own political gain. We’ll remind Quinn that she has her pot of gold, but she better not forgot the rainbow that led her to it!
A political enabler with aims to minimise, and even silence, dissent.
It should come as no surprise that Speaker Quinn "abdicated her responsibilities." When Speaker Quinn is faced with the dilemma between doing the right thing and picking what renders her with an immediate political advantage, Speaker Quinn always picks what is most politically expedient. Even those, who should be her most ardent base of support, leftist LGBT radical activists, know that Speaker Quinn cannot be counted upon to stay true to her liberal roots.
Speaker Quinn has a reputation for bluffing her way through critical public policy issues, like the hole in public health caused by the impending luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. As has been written on this blog before, Speaker Quinn has mastered the art of the non-answer answer : "She likes to be evasive, but she is definitive about giving you the run-around. She doesn’t have to give you either a proverbial bait-and-switch or back-pedal, provided she never has to first give you any policy position with which to lure you."
But Speaker Quinn's evasiveness begins to wear thin amongst radical activists, who know that the only way to make our elected politicians deliver a tangible solution to a societal problem is by keeping them politically accountable. Here is where direct action protest organisers enter into the political equation.
A Gay City News news report, which is no longer available online, was copied on the Radical Homosexual Agenda's website :
On Wednesday night over 500 people filled the City Council chamber for a celebration of "LGBT Pride and the Journey to End Violence and Hate." Among those honored were NYPD Detective Kevin Czartoryski, the Rashawn Brazell Memorial Fund, established in recognition of the brutal 2005 murder of a 19-year-old gay man from Brooklyn, and the Gay-Straight Alliance at Port Richmond High School in Staten Island.
Tony-winning actor Stephen Spinella opened the evening, and Speaker Christine Quinn, the first openly lesbian or gay leader of the Council, flanked in the front row by her partner, Kim Catullo, and her father Lawrence, recalled the city's decades-long struggle to achieve gay rights.
In the midst of her speech, half a dozen protesters from ACT UP and the Radical Homosexual Agenda unfurled protest banners from the balcony. They were criticizing a new police regulation requiring groups of 50 or more to first obtain a police permit. "You've criminalized the Dyke March and the Drag March," Tim Doody (pictured with Nina Resnick) of ACT UP yelled. Quinn allowed the protesters to have their say [for one minute], after which they were escorted from the building. There were no arrests.
Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, the chamber's other out lesbian member, who has been a vocal critic of the regulation, spoke up on Quinn's behalf. "My speaker cannot do anything until the Council is behind her," Mendez told the chamber.
''A Council Speaker Who Tightens the Purse Strings on Dissent''
Back on June 20, 2007, when activists with the Radical Homosexual Agenda were targeting Speaker Quinn over the NYPD's anti-assembly rules, activist James Wagner charged that Speaker Quinn had "made herself inaccessible" to activists, who had been seeking to meet with her about the requirement for protest permits. Mr. Wagner wrote that after the activists had been removed from the City Council Chambers, following their banner drop, Speaker Quinn said that she was "willing to meet with anyone who disagreed with her on the question of Police rules for assembly." But, as Mr. Wagner further wrote, Speaker Quinn's expression of willingness turned out to ring hallow : "For the record, I have been assured several times by those who know groups that have tried to engage her that she has repeatedly refused to do this in the past."
Sometime between the mass NYPD arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention and the 2008 revelation of Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal, Speaker Quinn decided that the best way to campaign to become mayor of New York City was to hitch her wagon to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gravy train. But because she does not have Mayor Bloomberg's billions, she was going to use taxpayer money to buy her way into higher office. When even The New York Times, with its many puff and fluff articles about Speaker Quinn's career, dares to report about how Speaker Quinn uses taxpayer money to stifle political dissent, you know that Speaker Quinn has begun to tread on thin political ice.
And now that activists with #OccupyWallStreet are confronting the use of excessive force of, and even brutality by, NYPD, those very activists are going to question Speaker Quinn's role in approving the restrictions on civil liberties caused by her rubber stamp on the NYPD’s anti-assembly rules. And once again, here comes another time when direct action protest organisers enter into the political equation.
Christine Quinn's protest permit law has inspired other governments to institute the same restrictions on freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, not surprisingly.
February 15th, 2003 Police Misconduct Evidence (NYPD)
Video footage from February 15th, 2003 anti-War protest at the United Nations in NYC. Hundreds of thousands of people came out on that day despite sub-freezing temperatures only to be prevented from marching or even entering the permitted protest area. Is this what a free democracy looks like ?
''The whole planet pays homage to Ground Zero, but they pay lip service to the hospital that was on the front lines that day,'' said a man named Christopher, who spoke at a rally at the end of a healthcare march by #OccupyWallStreet. Christopher spoke outside St. Vincent's Hospital. Because St. Vincent's was a Level 1 Trauma Center, it was the hospital designated to receive those injured by the September 11 attacks. It was closed in 2010, because we don't have a single-payer healthcare system. Right now, Brad Hoylman and Christine Quinn want to turn St. Vincent's into luxury condominiums in a controversial plan by the Rudin Management Company.
Since Christine Quinn Changed Term Limits, More People Are Living In Poverty.
From The New York Times :
More New Yorkers Living in Poverty
By SAM ROBERTS
New York State’s poverty rate climbed to 16 percent last year, the third consecutive annual increase and the highest rate since 1998, according to census figures released Tuesday. Nearly 3.1 million New Yorkers were living below the official poverty rate in 2010, also the highest total in 12 years.
The statewide rate climbed from 14.2 percent in 2008 to 15.8 percent in 2009 and inched up to 16 percent last year.
The poverty rate was 43 percent among households headed by a single mother, 24.6 percent among children younger than 18, 14 percent among 18-to-64-year-olds and 11.1 percent for people 65 and over,
“People have trouble conceptualizing number as large as three million, but this new data means that if New York State residents in poverty all held hands, they could create a line that would run from Times Square to the Golden Gate Bridge,” said Joel Berg, the executive director for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “For those of us who see surging lines at food pantries and soup kitchens citywide, these new numbers are no surprise.”
# # #
“Since they changed term limits, more people are living in poverty in New York City. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth has grown over three-fold while has been in office,” said Louis Flores. “With Christine Quinn’s help, Mayor Bloomberg has been laying off police, firefighters, and teachers ; closing senior citizen centers ; cutting childcare ; and closing hospitals – just basically shredding the social safety net. Also, how is Mayor Bloomberg allowed to make money from inside information through his new company called Bloomberg Government ?”
#OccupyWallStreet Healthcare march to St. Vincent's Hospital is reported by Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Keith Olbermann interviewed Dr. Steven Auerbach about the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the #OccupyWallStreet march for Healthcare for the 99%. (The segment about St. Vincent's and the #OWS march begins at about 0:34.)
St. Vincent’s was a Catholic-run hospital, which had a charity mission to serve the under-insured and uninsured. St. Vincent’s lacked the corporate clout to negotiate fair reimbursement rates from profit-driven insurance companies, leading to financial instability. Moreover, the short-term focus of the highly-paid executives and consultants pushed St. Vincent’s into bankruptcy – leading to a public health emergency: there is now no hospital on the Westside below 57th Street.
Politicians ranging from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to Manhattan Community Board 2 Chair Brad Hoylman to Mayor Michael Bloomberg did nothing to save St. Vincent's.
Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy the hospital’s real estate, and Rudin now stands to sell luxury condominiums and townhouses, once constructed, that are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.
YouTube video of #OWS protest against NYPD police brutality and use of excessive force, plus an invitation to the three-year anniversary of the term limits extension rammed through the City Council in 2008 by Speaker Christine Quinn.
Bloomberg and Quinn sold the lie that they would save the economy. Have they helped you with the economy ?
Taxpayers and voters are gathering at City Hall Park on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 2 p.m., to commemorate the three-year anniversary of “The Day That Democracy Died” : when Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed the City Council to extend term limits, allowing herself, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others to run for a third term in office.
“Since they changed term limits, more people are living in poverty in New York City. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth has grown over three-fold while has been in office,” said Louis Flores. “With Christine Quinn’s help, Mayor Bloomberg has been laying off police, firefighters, and teachers ; closing senior citizen centers ; cutting childcare ; and closing hospitals – just basically shredding the social safety net. Also, how is Mayor Bloomberg allowed to make money from inside information through his new company called Bloomberg Government ?”
Protesters will hold a rally, make speeches, and distribute voter registration applications, so that Speaker Christine Quinn and other City Council Members, who passed the term limits extension, can be voted out of office in 2013.
A Mass Civilian Trauma Exercise was held outside St. Vincent’s Hospital.
One of the participants at last night's "mass civilian trauma exercise" at St. Vincent' Hospital asked, "Where is Christine Quinn ?"
As part of the "mass civilian trauma exercise," many participants wore surgical masks and paper signs around their neck. The signs indicated what accidents, diseases, or emergencies they "have." Then, the "sick" participants "waited" for emergency medical treatment on the sidewalks outside St. Vincent's. No emergency help ever came, precisely because there is no longer a hospital in the Lower West Side. Some participants did not "make it." After the "mass civilian trauma exercise" came to an end, team of "survivors" marched to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Avenue, Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of CB2's Environmental, Public Safety & Public Health Committee.
NYPD is One Layoff Away from Joining #OccupyWallStreet
Seeing as how we living under weekly threats by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of layoffs of important first responders and other providers or protectors of the important social safety net in New York City, it should be noted that the New York Police Department is probably one layoff away from joining the activists at #OccupyWallStreet.
Please e-mail me at : louis.equality.flores (at) gmail.com for information about the planning of a sustained direct action campaign against William Rudin, Christine Quinn, and Brad Hoylman. 2011 10 10 OccupyCB2 Flyer
Christine Quinn, Who Has Already Sold Out On Her Labour Roots, Is On Cusp Of Killing Wage Bill Backed By Labour Supporters
''Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, facing conflicting pressures from her longtime labor allies and her new supporters in the business community, said Wednesday that she was not ready to take a position on a controversial proposal that would require employers who benefit from city subsidies to pay workers higher wages,'' reported The New York Times.
''How can she justify blocking a bill for that requires employers who receive city subsidies to pay workers $10/hour, especially in light of the fact that it is sponsored by a majority of Council Members ? Where's the humanity ? Where's the democracy ? How much of this behavior are you willing to forgive because you like the idea of having a gay person or a woman in higher office ?'' asked the government integrity activist Donny Moss on the Facebook social media site.
Political ploys under way in Russia could almost serve as an instruction manual for the leadership at either end of New York’s City Hall. You have to slap your forehead in wonder that the New Yorkers didn’t think up comparable high jinks for themselves.
In case your idea of foreign news is a revised menu at the International House of Pancakes, allow us to explain.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, who is Russia’s president but not the guy in charge, plans to step aside so that his place can be taken by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Medvedev’s predecessor and still the true power. Once Mr. Putin is installed anew as president, Mr. Medvedev will move in as prime minister. In some countries, leaders swap political favors. In Russia, it seems, they swap jobs.
The reason for this folderol is that Mr. Putin, though not thrilled with the idea, yielded the presidency three years ago in accordance with a constitutional provision limiting him to two consecutive terms.
In other words, this former K.G.B. man, known for strong-arm tactics, was more scrupulous about observing the niceties of term limits than were New York’s political leaders: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his Medvedev equivalent, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker.
You will recall that Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn could not bother themselves with observing the letter, let alone the spirit, of a voter-imposed city law limiting them to two terms. With the help of complaisant council members, they simply changed the law to reward themselves with third terms. Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to look less faithful to democratic formalities than Vladimir Putin.
There is no need to belabor the wobbly nature of this third term. Names and phrases like Cathleen P. Black, the 2010 blizzard, Stephen Goldsmith and the CityTime scandal tell you at a glance how things have often gone.
For the privilege of presiding over all that, Mr. Bloomberg distorted campaign financing beyond all recognition — yet again — by spending $108 million in 2009.On Monday, he was forced to testify at the trial of a political consultant accused of stealing $1.1 million from that campaign. Theft, if proved, is bad, of course. But Mr. Bloomberg tosses around money so freely that his losing a million dollars is like an average person’s having coins slip between the sofa cushions.
Nor are finances the only area of distortion. The normal balance between the executive and legislative branches in this city has been knocked askew in the Bloomberg-Quinn era. Theirs is not quite the Putin-Medvedev relationship, but it bears a certain resemblance, sort of a second-rate Moscow on the Hudson. Not unlike the Russians, Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn are trying to make sure that power remains within their alliance.
He leaves no doubt that he wants her to take his place after 2013. His administration goes out of its way to include her in news conferences even when the Council’s role is close to nonexistent, whether the issue is Hurricane Irene or, as was the case last week, an announcement that New Yorkers were eating more fruits and vegetables.
In turn, Ms. Quinn often acts as if she were not the Council speaker but, rather, the deputy mayor for legislative affairs. The latest example came a week ago when she bottled up a bill loathed by the mayor. It would have required mayors, including the wandering, Bermuda-loving Mr. Bloomberg, to let the rest of us know when he strays far from the city — certainly when he leaves the country, as he did before the 2010 blizzard. Ms. Quinn made sure that the Council would not even debate this proposal.
There is, however, such a thing as excessive coziness. A NY1-Marist College poll last week confirmed that, for now anyway, Ms. Quinn is the Democratic front-runner in the 2013 mayoral election. But it also showed that nearly half of Democratic voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had Mr. Bloomberg’s support.
How does that aphorism go about being careful what you wish for?
Police said that those activists, who impeded vehicular traffic on the bridge were were arrested. But The New York Times reported that "many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered." Look at this independent video :
Some of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, had their hands bound with plastic ties that the NYPD has used at other mass demonstration. Separately, the NYPD admitted that they police force had taken their own videos of the protesters, who had taken part in the demonstration, deliberately and intentionally tracking and monitoring the peaceful activists.
Once again, Speaker Quinn has not challenged the NYPD over the #OccupyWallStreet mass arrests, just like she did nothing over the NYPD mass arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The Day Democracy Died : On Oct. 23, 2008, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed an extension of term limits through the City Council. Join us for a protest to mark the third anniversary of this egregious act -- help us to register new voters.2011-10-23 Third Anniversary Term Limits Extension Protest - City Hall Park
Melanie Meyers, a real estate partner at the former law firm of Sarge Shriver, makes part of her case in this excerpt of her presentation before Manhattan Community Board 2 on behalf of the billionaire Rudin Family. Ms. Meyers is advocating, on behalf of William Rudin, to demolish many of the buildings that comprise the St. Vincent's Hospital campus, so that Mr. Rudin may build luxury condos in the heart of the West Village.
Decades ago, Lower Manhattan survived plans by Robert Moses to demolish a wide swath across Downtown Manhattan as part of his foolish plan to construct a cross-town highway to the East Side. Now comes Mr. Rudin, with his heartless desires to gut the core of the Village and replace it with more useless luxury condos.
Can the community come together to fight the blatant greed and dishonesty of the billionaire Rudin family ? Is Yetta Kurland the new Jane Jacobs ?
After William Rudin's giant scheme to take over St. Vincent's Hospital real estate properties has triggered an investigation by prosecutors, the Rudin Family went to great lengths to make sure that its luxury condominium conversion plan would be fast-tracked, pulling out all the stops.
But new information came to light this week : one top official of North Shore-LIJ hospital system, Jeffrey Kraut, is chair of the committee, which will recommend or deny North Shore-LIJ's application for a Department of Health license to operate a controversial stand-alone Emergency Department.
The Emergency Department is a consolation prize for the loss of a full-service hospital and Level 1 trauma center after St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010. Thus far, Mr. Kraut's actions has not been referred to the Attorney General's office, which oversees the ethics of the State's executive agencies, such as the Department of Health.
Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest in having influence over his own company's financial contracts and government licenses provide fresh evidence about the lack of integrity in the Rudin condo version plan.
In order to build its luxury condos, the Rudin Family encouraged North Shore-LIJ's application for the stand-alone Emergency Department. Because the Rudin condo conversion plan depends on the approval of North Shore-LIJ's application before the Department of Health, community members question Mr. Kraut's influence on other members of the Committee on Establishment and Project Review Meeting and Public Hearing, which will determine the outcome of North Shore-LIJ's permit application.
The information about Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest is another negative blight on the Rudin Family, who have also tried astroturfing, lobbying, and distribution of propaganda by mail. The Rudin Family has also been criticised for opposing freedom of information requests that might be useful in investigations.
Separately, the Department of Health has been criticised for its inaction in saving other hospitals from closure, and for the absence of any investigation or prosecution of individuals, who were involved in the hospital closure crisis.
On the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, an employee of St. Vincent's Hospital reflects on that horrible day. It is sad to think that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has picked the side of the billionaire developers, who are trying to convert St. Vincent's into more tacky glass and steel luxury condominiums, over the critical role that a Level 1 Trauma Center can play in the community.
